San Diego's mayoral candidates deployed new weapons to lob familiar charges at each other yesterday – Jerry Sanders with TV ads, Donna Frye with a giant yellow chicken.

These things happen when elections draw near, and this latest Frye-Sanders skirmish came with the Nov. 8 special election only 20 days off.

In his TV ads, which began airing this week, Sanders took aim at two familiar targets: A $1.1 billion, 10-year sales-tax increase in Frye's fiscal-recovery plan, and her 2002 votes to underfund the pension and her 2003 decision to take a controversial pension perk.

"Councilmember Frye's failure to accept responsibility for her pension votes, or for her purchase of discounted pension credits, raise serious questions about her character and her integrity," Sanders told a news conference at his Hillcrest campaign headquarters.

Frye drew a crowd to her own news conference – near the C Street trolley tracks outside City Hall – where she was joined by a supporter wearing a bright yellow chicken suit to underscore her claim that Sanders' fiscal recovery plan doesn't address the city's dire financial straits.

On the chicken's chest were Sanders for Mayor buttons and a bumper sticker. The chicken made an earlier appearance outside Sanders' headquarters.

"Jerry, are you too chicken to tell the public the truth?" Frye said, yelling above the passing trains.

"Show me the money, Jerry! Show me how your numbers add up, or are you too chicken to show the people the money? You just can't tell 'em the truth, can ya, Jerry? Because the truth is, your numbers don't add up, because you don't have numbers and because you change them all the time. So, Jerry, are you too chicken to tell the public the truth?"

Frye said her plan presents a more detailed breakdown of how much money it would save the city – along with her belief that the city will probably come up $100 million short a year, a gap she would ask voters to fill with a sales tax increase.

Yesterday she called the tax boost a last resort; a recent Frye mailer cast the tax as a firm part of her plan.

Both of Sanders' TV spots open with footage of Frye at a City Council meeting, with the dark, ominous background music typical of such ads.

In one ad, the narrator says: "Councilmember Donna Frye wants to raise your taxes by $1 billion to pay for her mistakes. That's not the solution."

The underfunding of the pension system began in 1996 under then-Mayor Susan Golding and was continued in 2002 votes under then-Mayor Dick Murphy.

Frye was elected in 2001 and cast multiple votes in favor of underfunding in 2002, joining council majorities to pass items strongly recommended by city managers.

Frye later became the council's leading, and for a long time only, supporter of pension board whistle-blower Diann Shipione, who in November 2002 warned of pension system abuses.

As for his tax policy, Sanders declined throughout much of the primary election campaign to take taxes off the table as a distant option.

But he flatly ruled them out for the current crisis after being criticized by primary opponent Steve Francis. Sanders says taxes may be a future option only after the pension crisis is resolved and public trust in City Hall restored.

In the second ad, the narrator says: "Warned the city pension fund was in trouble, Donna Frye purchased discounted benefits for herself, then blamed the problem on others."

The music then changes to something lighter, with the narrator touting Sanders' service as police chief and as leader of local United Way and Red Cross chapters.

Both ads close with Sanders standing near the bay, with the downtown skyline in the background, saying: "Our city's in trouble. I have the experience, the track record and the plan to solve this crisis and put our city back on track."

At the Sanders news conference, campaign aides handed out materials showing that Frye cast multiple votes in 2002 to underfund the pension and increase benefits, prior to Shipione's warnings.

Sanders also noted that Frye and the council were warned about pension underfunding in February 2002, by the mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee on City Finances.

Frye has said that same report listed the pension system as 90 percent funded, which she said did not raise red flags. Actually, the report stated – erroneously – that the pension system was 97 percent funded.

In a recent interview, Sanders refused to say how he would have voted on pension and benefit matters had he been on the council in 2002 and had the same information available to Frye at the time.

Yesterday, Sanders said that Frye bought service credits a year after Shipione's warnings, and did not talk about returning them until this year. Frye has said she thought she was buying a legitimate benefit and asked to have it returned to the pension system when she learned it was controversial.

Frye said she had not seen Sanders' ads. Asked about his comments on integrity and character, she said: "I don't really care what he thinks of me, quite frankly."